Tower Hill (volcano) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tower Hill (Koroitj)
Tower Hill (Koroitj) Location in Victoria
Highest point
Elevation	103 m (338 ft)
Geography
Location	Victoria, Australia
Geology
Last eruption	34,000 BP

Tower Hill is an inactive volcano located on the southwest coast of Victoria, Australia. It's about 275 kilometers west of Melbourne and 15 kilometers northwest of Warrnambool. Inside its large crater, there are smaller cone-shaped hills and a beautiful lake. The main crater is about 3 kilometers wide and 80 meters high. It's known as a giant maar, which is a special type of volcanic explosion crater. This makes Tower Hill very important for understanding geology around the world. The local Dhauwurdwurrung people call the volcano Koroitj.

Discovering Tower Hill's Past

Tower Hill has a long and interesting history. Aboriginal people have lived in this area for thousands of years. Scientists have found ancient Aboriginal campsites, called kitchen middens, at Tower Hill. These sites contain bones of animals like the Tasmanian devil from 5,000 years ago.

Ancient Tools and Eruptions

Archaeologists have also found stone tools, like greenstone axe heads, buried under volcanic ash. This shows that Aboriginal people were living here when the volcano erupted. A special tool called the "Bushfield Axe" was found under volcanic ash in 1947. This evidence matches the oral histories of the Gunditjmara people, who have stories about the volcano erupting. These stories are some of the oldest in the world.

Dating the Last Eruption

For a long time, scientists thought Tower Hill last erupted about 25,000 years ago. But in 2020, new research used a more advanced method called argon-argon dating. This new study showed that Tower Hill erupted at least 34,000 years ago. This discovery is very important because it helps confirm how long people have lived in Victoria. It also shows how accurate and old the Aboriginal oral histories are.

European Sightings and Art

The first Europeans to see Tower Hill were French explorers in 1802. They were sailing with Captain Baudin. Later that year, Matthew Flinders might have also seen it, calling it "Peaked Hill." In 1855, a famous artist named Eugene von Guerard painted Tower Hill. His painting, Tower Hill, 1855, is now in the Warrnambool art gallery. This painting was later used to help restore the native plants in the area.

What's in a Name?

The exact reason for the name "Tower Hill" isn't fully known. Some people think it was named in the 1840s because it looked like a castle. Others believe a sailor from Glasgow named it after a place called Tower Hill in Scotland.

How Tower Hill Was Formed

Tower Hill is a special type of volcano called a "nested maar." It's the biggest one of its kind in Victoria. It formed when hot, molten lava pushed up through the Earth's crust. When the lava hit underground water, it caused huge explosions. These explosions left a shallow crater, which later filled with rainwater to become a lake. More eruptions happened inside this lake, creating the islands and cone-shaped hills you see today. These smaller hills are called scoria cones.

A Unique Geological Site

The main crater of Tower Hill is about 3.2 kilometers long and 2.4 kilometers wide. The crater walls are very steep, dropping over 90 meters deep. Because of its complex structure and large size, Tower Hill is considered a very important geological site. It helps scientists understand how volcanoes work, both in Australia and around the world.

Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve

Today, Tower Hill is a protected area known as the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve. For many years after European settlement, the land was used for farming and quarrying stone. However, since 1961, a big effort has been made to bring the area back to its natural state. Many native plants have been replanted, and native animals have been reintroduced. It's now a great place to see Australian wildlife.

Where to Find Tower Hill

Tower Hill is located about 275 kilometers west of Melbourne and 15 kilometers northwest of Warrnambool. The town of Koroit is right on the northern edge of Tower Hill. This makes it easy to visit from both Warrnambool and Port Fairy.

Images for kids

Panoramic photograph from the Eugene von Guerard lookout at Tower Hill, looking south. This lookout is located at approximate location from which he painted his Tower Hill, 1855 painting.

Eugene von Guerard's Tower Hill, 1855.

Large panorama of the crater, from the south, looking north. You can see the scoria cones forming the 'islands' in the middle of the crater, and the lake and far rims of the larger crater.